


Matchmaker

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Getting Together, Happy Birthday Kai Toshiki, Insecurity, M/M, Matchmaking, Miwa POV, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26169358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Aichi has feelings for Kai but doesn't want Kai to know and Kai has feelings for Aichi but doesn't want Aichi to know and Miwa is stuck in the middle with this knowledge and a saintly patience when it comes to getting his shy friends together.
Relationships: Kai Toshiki & Miwa Taishi, Kai Toshiki/Sendou Aichi, Miwa Taishi & Sendou Aichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Matchmaker

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, kai-kun

Every day after school, they gathered at Card Capital to play Vanguard. But today, there was a little bit of a hangup in this routine and it was, predictably, because of Kai Toshiki’s stubbornness.

“If you _don’t_ do this assignment, you won’t pass math,” Miwa argued as he and Kai walked through the front doors of the shop. 

“I don’t see how this stuff is going to help me play Vanguard, Miwa.”

Miwa sighed and gave Misaki a little wave. She nodded in acknowledgement as he followed Kai to the back of the shop. “You are aware, and I know this will be hard to hear, that Vanguard is not the only skill in the world you should have, right?”

Kai ignored him and sat across from Aichi, who was chatting with Ishida. 

Aichi’s face lit up instantly. “Oh, hello, Kai-kun!”

“Hey.” Kai gave him a little smile back. 

“Aichi,” Miwa announced, flinging himself into the seat next to Kai, “don’t fight him until he’s finished this math homework.”

“Miwa,” Kai growled. 

Aichi tilted his head. “Are you having trouble with it?”

Instead of admitting or denying that substituting equations was not something that came easily to him, Kai sort of mumbled something incoherent. 

“Aichi’s real good at math, you know.” Ishida jerked a finger in Aichi’s direction as Aichi blushed. “Best in our class. He’s taking some kinda calculus cram class, even.”

Aichi just responded with some kind of typically humble “I guess I understand math better than some things” excuse but looked at Kai the whole time. “But if you want, I-I can help?”

Kai sighed, arms crossed. “You came here to play Vanguard, not tutor me in math.”

“It’s not a problem!” Aichi insisted. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Then… I guess… that’s okay.”

“Great!” Aichi jumped to his feet and shuffled to the other side of the table, taking the chair on the other side of Kai from Miwa. “Okay, so if you take it out we can see what you’ll need…”

Ishida gestured toward Miwa and nodded at a vacant fight table a few feet away. “While they’re doin’ that, wanna fight?”

“You bet!” 

They set up quickly, with Miwa taking the first ride. He glanced over at Aichi and Kai as Ishida contemplated his turn, catching Aichi leaning close to Kai as he pointed between two equations on the paper in front of them.

“So if you want to eliminate the twelve, what do you have to multiply that three by?”

Kai squinted at the paper. “Is it… four?”

“Yeah! So go ahead and do that and subtract the two equations…”

“I attack the Vanguard,” Ishida announced.

Miwa’s attention snapped back. “Hm… no guard.”

As was Ishida’s fighting style, he struck aggressively by the time he rode to grade two. Miwa begrudgingly had to use up cards he would rather have called; he ended up narrowly losing as a result. 

“Heh, you’ve gotten really good over the past year.”

“It’s ‘cause I’ve got strong friends who show me how to get stronger.” Ishida grinned. “Hey, I think Kai’s got the hang of it now.”

Sure enough, Aichi sat patiently next to Kai as Kai alternated between typing numbers into the calculator app on his phone and writing numbers on the paper. Aichi nodded eagerly when Kai pointed at an answer. Seemingly satisfied, Kai gave Aichi his own nod and started working on the next problem. 

Instead of focusing on the worksheet, though, Aichi was focused on Kai’s face. 

“While Kai is finishing his homework, would you like to have a fight, Aichi?” Miwa held up his deck.

“Hm?” Aichi tore his eyes away from Kai. “A wh— oh, a fight! Sure!”

Miwa raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as they settled at a nearby table and sat down to shuffle. It was clear by the time Aichi rode Blaster Blade that his attention was split between the fight and something over Miwa’s shoulder— or, rather, some _one_ , slouching at a table behind them as he frowned at the equations he was trying to solve. 

“Are you gonna guard?” Miwa pressed.

“Huh? Oh— um, no, no guard.”

Miwa’s drive check yielded a draw trigger; Aichi’s damage check was Marron. 

It was more a testament to Aichi’s distractedness than Miwa’s skill that Miwa was able to win; Aichi just laughed it off (“not my day, I guess”) and not-so-discreetly glanced over at Kai again, who had just tossed his pencil on the table.

“Aichi, let’s fight,” Kai announced with no preamble, and Aichi readily agreed.

Miwa settled in to watch. This time, Aichi’s full attention was on the match ahead of them, winning the first match, then losing the second, and pulling off a miracle heal to win the third (much to Kai’s dismay). But Kai wasn’t mad; he smiled faintly as he placed his last damage in the damage zone. “You win again.”

There was a slight pink tinge to Aichi’s face as he collected his cards. “As always, you’re amazing, Kai-kun.” He gave Kai’s deck a longing look. “I have to go home… will you be here tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” 

This seemed to brighten Aichi up; he smiled widely as he stood, adjusting his blazer and pocketing his deck case. “Then, I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye, Kai-kun, Miwa-kun!” 

“Bye-bye!” 

“See you.”

Aichi headed out, stopping briefly to pet Sub-Manager and bid Misaki good-night. 

But something was up with him, and Miwa had to know if he was right about what that thing was. Which meant he couldn’t ask in front of Kai. And he would rather approach this subject in person instead of through texts. 

That way, Aichi wouldn’t be able to avoid addressing this problem yet again.

“Hey, I forgot to ask him something,” he said, standing up. “Be right back.”

He followed Aichi out the door at a light jog, giving Misaki an apologetic grin in apology as she sharply told him not to run in the shop, and caught up to Aichi quickly, resisting the urge to sling his arm over Aichi’s shoulder.

“Hey Aichi!” 

Aichi jumped slightly. “M-Miwa-kun?”

He was glad he decided against the shoulder thing. Aichi seemed a little jumpy. “I just had something I wanted to ask.”

Was it any of his business? No. At least, not directly. His friends’ happiness was his business, though, and that was what prompted him to launch directly into what would probably be the most uncomfortable conversation he’d ever had with Aichi. (For Aichi, anyway. Miwa had no shame.)

“When we were fighting earlier, you seemed kind of distracted…”

“Eh…? Uh, um, s-sorry!” Aichi laughed nervously, scratching his arm. “I didn’t realize…”

“Is something on your mind?”

The nervous smile slid from Aichi’s face with almost comic slowness. “L-like what…”

 _Time to get to the heart of the matter._ “Kai.”

The smile was gone now; the color drained from Aichi’s face. He stopped moving in the middle of the sidewalk, still as a statue, barely breathing. 

“Aichi, you okay?”

Aichi’s lips barely moved as he forced out a whispered reply, “what do you mean?”

Was he, himself, unaware of how much he looked at Kai, smiled at Kai, talked about Kai? “I mean, you were kind of… staring at Kai a lot today.” He thought about it for a moment as Aichi made a small noise of distress. “More than usual, even.”

Aichi buried his head in both hands, letting out a louder noise of anguish. “I—I... “ He peeked up at Miwa through his fingers. “Is it… obvious…”

“Pretty obvious to anyone who’s paying attention, yeah.” Miwa scratched his chin apologetically as Aichi whimpered again. 

“Is it… obvious to… him?”

Miwa snorted with laughter. If it was obvious to Kai, they would either be making out on Kai’s bed right now or avoiding each other like the plague. “Buddy, I don’t think anything has ever been obvious to Kai in his entire life.”

This made Aichi smile a little as he lowered his hands, though with relief or humor, Miwa wasn’t sure. Maybe a little of both. 

“If… I guess... “ Aichi fidgeted with a button on his blazer and determinedly did not look at Miwa. “I've had feelings for him for a long time, Miwa-kun... I don't know when it started... but... he's more than a friend to me.” 

It may have been obvious to Miwa by observation, but hearing this confession from Aichi’s mouth was still startling. “I see.”

Aichi put the tip of his thumb in his mouth and chewed distractedly for a moment. Finally, he looked up. “Miwa-kun, please… please don’t tell him. I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for him.”

Something of Miwa’s reservation must have shown on his face, because Aichi grasped Miwa’s wrist and looked up at him, brows knitted together in consternation and eyes wide with fear. “Please promise me.”

Left to their own devices, Kai and Aichi would never let the other know their true feelings. And Miwa knew how Kai felt about Aichi, even if Kai would never voice it. But Miwa would also never betray a friend’s innermost secrets, so he took Aichi’s hand in his and smiled warmly. “I promise, Aichi. Your secret’s safe with me!”

Aichi smiled back, relief in his eyes. “Thank you, Miwa-kun.”

“Sure thing. Hey, if Miyaji is up for it, we’d like to have a friendly with you again soon…”

Aichi blinked a few times at the abrupt change in conversation. “Oh, that would be good, yeah. I’ll talk to my team tomorrow and let you know?”

“Yeah, no prob. See you!” 

“Bye, Miwa-kun. And… thanks.”

Miwa flashed him a grin and a two-fingered wave and trotted back to Card Capital. 

* * *

Miwa _knew_ , but it wasn’t up to him to coax Kai into talking about it. After all, Kai would talk about it when he was ready to talk about it, like any good friend would do. 

But this had been his mindset for the last two years and it hadn’t gotten anywhere and it _wouldn’t_ get anywhere because Kai was irritatingly tight-lipped about any aspect of his personal life. 

So it was time to throw some things out there and see what stuck. 

It happened to be their day to clean the third-year hallway, a task that Kai seemed to enjoy—or, at least, he didn’t seem to mind—and he was deeply immersed in cleaning the windows when Miwa leaned against the wall with the mop and stared at him. 

_One, two, three, four…_

Kai kept cleaning, though a muscle twitched in his jaw. 

_...eight, nine, ten, eleven…_

_“What.”_

Only twelve seconds. He really was too easy.

“Did you finish your homework last night?”

Kai slid the cloth across the window with more force than necessary. “Yes.”

“Awfully nice of Aichi to tutor you for free,” Miwa said coyly. 

Too coyly. Kai grunted and moved on to the next window. 

“Misaki said she’ll help me study for entrance exams.” Another grunt. Miwa went on, undeterred. “Maybe you could get Aichi to help you study for entrance exams.”

The hand with the cloth in it fell to Kai’s side. Rather than roll his eyes, glare, or tell Miwa to mind his own business, Kai’s eyes drooped. 

There it was.

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to university,” Kai muttered. 

“It can’t hurt to prepare just in case.”

Kai sighed and moved onto the next window. 

“Hey.” Miwa shuffled after him, dragging the mop and unhelpfully splashing water up onto the wall. “I think he would like helping you.”

“I’m fine.” He said it more stiffly than usual. 

“Is something going on with you two?” Miwa watched Kai’s face carefully, to see if he could spot the telltale signs of Kai figuring out how best to avoid his problems. 

Predictably, he avoided Miwa’s gaze and focused intently on cleaning the same window pane. “What are you talking about.”

Miwa shrugged. “Lately it just seems like you’ve been acting kinda weird around him.”

Kai sighed in frustration and turned away again. “I don’t know, okay?”

“Hey.” Miwa touched his arm gently. Kai didn’t attempt to pull away, so Miwa took a chance. “Do you have feelings for him?”

All the color drained from Kai’s face. “W-why would you say…”

“Look.” Miwa leaned closer. “You’ve been through hell together. He means a lot to you. I figured…” He shrugged again and leaned on his mop handle. “Maybe he just meant _more._ ”

Defeated, Kai pressed his forehead to the window pane, staring down into the courtyard with a vacant expression. “Don’t tell him, Miwa,” he whispered. “I don’t want him to know.”

“I won’t, but why don’t you want him to know?”

“I just don’t.” Kai shook his head and rubbed with the cloth at the spot on the window where his forehead had been. “It’s better this way.”

 _Better for who?_ Miwa thought, because it wasn’t for Aichi, and it certainly wasn’t better for Kai.

But he had pried enough today. Now that he was certain both Kai and Aichi had feelings for each other, he was going to do his damnedest to get them together.

* * *

“Don’t chop it like that, you’re going to want to slice it thin.”

“Like this?”

“Perfect.”

Miwa watched as Aichi painstakingly sliced beef strips into thin pieces before putting them in a bowl. They were in Aichi’s kitchen, and Miwa was teaching Aichi how to prepare beef stroganoff.

(“Miwa-kun, I know it’s Kai-kun’s birthday this weekend… I wondered, if maybe, I could invite him for dinner?”

“Oh? That’s a big step.”

“Ah, I know… maybe it’s too much…”

“Not at all. If it helps, his favorite food is beef stroganoff.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a Russian dish, made with beef and mushrooms and noodles… though Kai likes it better with rice and butter.”

“That sounds hard…”

“It’s easy! If you’d like, I can come over and teach you how to make it!”)

Aichi was clearly outside his element in a kitchen, but, bless him, he was trying so hard. Miwa couldn’t help but think that Aichi needed a house husband like Kai to cook meals for him, but when he voiced this thought aloud, Aichi became so overwhelmed with embarrassment that he curled up on the kitchen floor with his hands over his head until Miwa had to physically pull him to his feet again.

“Let’s make the sauce next.”

They went through each step of the meal, prepping it for that Thursday evening so Aichi could just toss it on the stove after school and turn on the rice cooker. When Aichi’s mother came home, she was elated to find that Aichi had not only brought a friend home but also that he was learning to cook—and somehow, she was even _more_ thrilled at the prospect of Kai coming over for a birthday meal.

Something told Miwa that Aichi had told his mother all about Kai Toshiki.

When they finished getting everything ready—with Mrs. Sendou promising to get the rice soaked and cleaned before Aichi got home from school that Thursday—Miwa knew he had a solid plan in motion. Now for the tricky part…

“How should I invite him over?” Aichi sounded nervous, and on the verge of biting his fingernail again.

“No worries! I’ll get him here.” Miwa had no idea how to pull that off without making Kai suspicious, but he had two days. It was fine.

“Okay.” Aichi’s shoulders relaxed. “Um, Miwa-kun? Thank you.”

Miwa patted Aichi’s shoulder fondly. “Of course! See you tomorrow!”

Aichi was the easy one of the pair to get on the right track toward confessing his undying feelings for his eternal soulmate.

Now the real trouble was Kai.

* * *

“Let me get this straight.” Miwa leaned his elbows on the back of Kai’s desk chair and peered down at Kai, who was sitting on the floor with his arms crossed. “You finally got up the courage to walk him home. You saw a cat. He went to pet the cat. The cat scratched him and ran off.”

Kai let out a frustrated noise.

“And you… took him back to his house so his mom could bandage him up instead of doing it yourself?”

“It’s not like I carry around a first aid kit,” Kai grumbled.

“But you just dropped him off at home and didn’t stay to make sure he was okay?”

“He insisted…”

Miwa sighed as he slid off the chair and joined Kai on the floor. “Kai, buddy, your lack of initiative is why you’ll be a virgin forever.”

He regretted the words immediately; Kai’s face flushed red, not in indignation or embarrassment, but in a deep sadness Miwa had only seen once before. Then, like now, Kai had been trying to understand his feelings for _him_ , feelings of guilt and longing and desperation, feelings he didn’t know how to cope with.

“I don’t want to think about him like that,” Kai said softly. “I… I don’t. He doesn’t…” He pulled his knees closer to his body.

He was closing himself off, again.

“I know.” Miwa licked his lower lip and slid his arm around Kai’s shoulder. Kai didn’t try to shake him off like he normally did; he needed this comfort, if even subconsciously. “I’m sorry, Kai.”

Kai shrugged jerkily even as his chin quivered. “Sometimes… I dream about him. About—” He sobbed dryly as Miwa tightened his grip around Kai’s shoulder and pulled him closer, heart burning for his best friend’s pain. Kai leaned his head on Miwa’s shoulder. “I always wake up feeling… guilty. Like I’m, tarnishing my friendship with him even thinking about, you know, the things in my dreams.”

Oh, if Miwa could only tell Kai how much Aichi really loved him, too.

_Miwa-kun, please… please don’t tell him. I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for him._

_I promise, Aichi. Your secret’s safe with me!_

It would almost be worth breaking his promise with Aichi if only to ease Kai’s insecurities. But then, Aichi would never trust him the same way again. And Miwa knew if the roles were reversed that he wouldn’t want to find out that the object of his deepest affections loved him back from someone else, either. And there was no guarantee that Kai finding out through Miwa wouldn’t make him feel _worse,_ like making him wonder whether Aichi was ashamed of his feelings for Kai and that was why he kept it a secret.

_Don’t tell him, Miwa. I don’t want him to know._

_I won’t, but why_ don’t _you want him to know?_

_I just don’t. It’s better this way._

Before, he let Kai keep his feelings to himself. But if he could get Kai to open up more, maybe he could do something to help this time, before Kai shut himself off completely again, the way he had done for so, so long. The way he had done before Aichi came back into his life.

Miwa never wanted Kai to be that lonely ever again.

“What you dream about isn’t something to feel guilty of, Kai.”

“He deserves better than me.”

Despite everything, Miwa felt a surge of irritation. He looked down at Kai and said in a sharp voice, “and have you even thought about how _he_ feels about _you_?”

A mistake, to say this. 

Kai lifted his head from Miwa's shoulder. "What... do you mean?"

How to tell Kai without betraying Aichi? 

"Kai... it's obvious that... you mean the world to him." This, at least, he could pass off as personal observation. "The way he lights up when he sees you. The way he talks to you. He loves you, you know?"

Kai's eyes glistened. Miwa felt a lump in his throat. 

_May have just made that worse._

“He loves all of his friends,” Kai whispered. "Like you… and Tokura and Katsuragi… But does he love me... like I love him?"

_I've had feelings for him for a long time, Miwa-kun... I don't know when it started... but he's more than a friend to me._

"That's something you have to talk to him about, Kai. I'm not Aichi. I don't know what's in his heart." 

Kai slumped his head against his bed. "I can't just ask him."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Miwa..." Kai sighed, a shuddering, sorrowful sound. The lump in Miwa's throat had traveled to the corners of his eyes. "I told you, I feel—" 

"Guilty?"

Kai looked over at him, the tears threatening to spill over his face more pronounced now. "I hurt him.”

Miwa stayed silent. This wasn’t an issue he could argue with Kai on; Kai _had_ hurt Aichi, and _deeply_. But hadn’t Aichi forgiven him?

“I let my insecurities get so bad I, goddamn it, I nearly killed him.” Kai leaned back against the bed once more and covered his face with his arm. “And, and even then… even after telling me I fucked up, he still…”

 _He still threw his heart at your feet, you oblivious moron._ “He still cares about you, Kai. He knows you care about him. Remember? When he disappeared and you tore this world upside down looking for him?” 

“It was my fault he—”

 _“No.”_ Miwa grabbed Kai by the collar and shook him roughly; Kai threw his arms out, instinctively trying to ward Miwa off, but Miwa pulled Kai closer until their noses almost touched. Kai stopped moving, his hand over Miwa’s, which was still gripping Kai’s shirt. “No, no, no, no, _no._ You are _not_ pulling this self-pitying bullshit again, Kai. We’re past this.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Kai. You love him. You can’t keep that bottled up anymore.”

Kai shook his head. “I have to. I can’t—”

Miwa gave Kai another shake. “You can. You _can_ , Kai.”

“No, I can’t. What if... “ 

The tears spilled over, finally.

“I can’t handle the thought of him rejecting me.”

And here, Miwa understood now, was the true root of the situation. Kai—lonely, scared, lovesick Kai, who threw the fate of two worlds into chaos born from his insecurities about how his friends perceived him and the fear of being left behind—would rather not be loved at all than risk suffering heartbreak again. 

“Oh, Kai.” 

Miwa pulled Kai close as Kai cried silently into Miwa’s shoulder; gently, he stroked Kai’s hair, his back, struggling to think of a way to salvage this. Feeling Kai’s body tremble against his _hurt,_ far more than Miwa could bear. 

“I don’t think he will,” Miwa whispered into Kai’s hair.

“And if he does?” 

Miwa kissed Kai’s forehead and pulled away, giving Kai’s shoulders a gentle squeeze before brushing the tears from Kai’s cheeks. “Then I’ll be here. I’m right here, forever, no matter what. I’ll never let you be alone again. But Kai, you need to get it out. I know the thought of him rejecting you hurts but it’ll hurt more if you just don’t tell him. That uncertainty… you can’t move on if you don’t let yourself take that step.”

Kai let out a shuddering breath. “W-what do I do?”

Miwa reached for the phone on Kai’s desk and pressed it into Kai’s hands. “Call him.”

“Right… right now?”

“Just ask him if his hand is better. Talk about how you’re looking forward to fighting him at Card Capital tomorrow. Kai, just… just talk to him. Listen to his voice.” _Think about why you fell so hard for him in the first place._

And, with agonizing slowness, Kai opened his contact list, finger hovering over the little _call_ icon next to Aichi’s name.

Miwa stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To make tea.” Kai needed as much privacy as he could get in this tiny apartment, and maybe a hot drink to calm his nerves. There was a box of chamomile in the cupboard that Miwa remembered from the last time he had come over.

Kai still hadn’t pressed the button, so Miwa leaned down, took Kai’s hand, and pressed Kai’s finger against the screen.

“M-Miwa!”

_Brrrrriii… brrrrriii…_

Miwa smiled. “Just be yourself. It’s all he could need from you right now.”

“But—"

_Brr—_

He was close enough to hear Aichi’s voice from the receiver issue a puzzled greeting. “Hello?”

“Ai-Aichi?”

“Kai-kun?”

“Y-yeah, I just wanted to… see how your hand was doing…”

Miwa smiled as he entered the kitchen. He could no longer hear Aichi’s half of the conversation, but Kai stammered through and made several _ah_ s and _I see_ s between the long pauses, presumably during which Aichi was chatting at a thousand miles a minute, the way he often did when he was nervous.

Kai had an old-fashioned stovetop tea kettle instead of one of the fancy electric ones that heated up the water in less than a minute, a fact that Miwa lamented nearly every time he came over, but today he was grateful because it meant he had more time to wait in the kitchen while Kai and Aichi talked.

“Maybe try criticals instead of stands? One damage trigger can really…”

Miwa allowed himself a soft giggle and an eye roll as steam poured from the kettle. Talking about Vanguard. _Typical._

"Aichi." Kai blurted out his name, obviously desperate to say something he had been trying to hold in for the entire conversation. "I, I know we don't talk about when we were on that rooftop but— yeah… it, but you said something to me that, when you said to imagine a future where you were… yeah. It's something I've thought a lot about…" 

Miwa froze halfway through opening the tea box.

_Is he going to say it?_

"It meant a lot to me. I hadn't realized how much I'd isolated myself… No, Aichi, that wasn't your fault. I felt lonely…"

Whatever Aichi said next had such a profound impact on Kai's entire demeanor that when Miwa peered around the divider between the kitchen and Kai's living space, he saw Kai on the verge of tears once more, his mouth quivering. But he didn’t seem upset, like before.

"No, I’m still here," he whispered. He cupped the phone against his face as he closed his eyes.

For the first time that night, he looked at peace.

"It's not… I appreciate that. Thank you, Aichi. ...Yeah. Yeah. Okay. See you tomorrow." 

He hung up and clutched his phone to his chest, a quiet sob slipping from his throat mingling with a strangled laugh.

The tea was weak, but Miwa brought it out to Kai anyway, smiling. 

"It looks like it went well."

Kai opened his reddened eyes and reached for the tea. "Yeah."

Miwa returned to his spot on the floor next to Kai. "He said something that made you really happy, after you said you were lonely…"

It wasn't any of his concern, and he wouldn't have been surprised if Kai told him to mind his own business, the way he normally did when Miwa was getting nosy. Instead, Kai smiled faintly at his muddled reflection in the teacup. 

_"Share your loneliness with me."_

Miwa's heart and eyes filled with appreciation for Aichi, who in one simple phrase had alleviated so many of Kai's fears. "I see." 

"I'm going to… I'm going to tell him. Tomorrow."

"If I can help—"

Kai leaned his head on Miwa’s shoulder. "You already have." 

* * *

They arrived in class together, Miwa having spent the night at Kai’s place. Miwa had woken up to the smell of strongly brewed coffee and the sound of Kai making breakfast; he regretted not waking up first to prevent Kai from drinking three cups of brew, as Kai was immediately jittery upon sitting at his desk. The girl who sat in front of Kai kept shooting him a _look_ as his bouncing leg kept tapping the back of her chair—not that Kai cared. He wasn’t paying attention, either; the teacher repeated his name three times before Kai so much as looked up at him, and he didn’t bother standing when the fact that he was being asked a question finally registered. 

But to the entire class’s surprise, including Miwa’s, Kai correctly answered the equation before turning his attention back to the window. 

Well, at least Aichi was a good tutor. 

The caffeine had worn off by the end of the day and Kai slept most of the way through science class until the bell signalling the end of the day rang. Neither of them was assigned chores and their club meeting had been postponed because Morikawa had failed a literature exam that he needed to retake, so they began walking to Card Capital together, slowly.

Except, they weren’t quite headed there.

“Where are you going? The shop is this way.” Kai frowned at Miwa, who was taking an alternate route. 

Miwa, of course, had something completely different planned. Or, rather, he and _Aichi_ had something planned. As it turned out, it had _accidentally_ slipped Miwa’s mind to tell Kai about it, too. 

What better time for them to confess to each other than over a home-cooked meal?

“We’re getting Aichi.”

Kai glanced at the time on his phone. “He’s home? Why not just wait for him at school?”

Oh, if only Kai knew. Miwa just grinned and winked. 

When they arrived at Aichi’s house, Miwa pulled his phone from his pocket. “Oh no! Misaki wants me to go help out at the shop.” He faced Kai, straightening Kai’s tie. “You can handle it, right? I gotta run ahead.”

Kai’s face paled. “W-wait, what if—”

“If anything goes wrong, call me.” Miwa had no reason to believe things wouldn’t go well. Awkwardly, no doubt, but things would work out in the end. “I’ll run right back, okay?”

Kai fidgeted. “If, if you say so…”

“I believe in you, Kai Toshiki.” Miwa patted Kai’s shoulders. Kai smiled weakly. “Good luck.”

“Bye,” Kai whispered, and Miwa headed off, leaving Kai at Aichi’s front door, not knowing that Aichi had cooked Kai an early birthday dinner and was planning on doing the exact same thing Kai had resolved to do himself. 

* * *

_[Miwa] so?_

If everything had gone as Miwa hoped, then Kai wouldn’t reply back for a little while yet. Sure enough, Miwa was able to pick up some groceries for his mom for dinner before Kai finally texted him back with an unsurprisingly vague message.

_[Kai] he said it first_

_[Miwa] said what_

_[Kai] that he loved me_

Every emotion Miwa felt at this—amusement, relief, satisfaction, pride, happiness—escaped him in one strangled laugh-sob-sigh as he leaned against a nearby fence to compose himself. 

_[Miwa] kai that's wonderful_

_[Miwa] I am so happy for you_

_[Kai] you helped_

_[Kai] thank you miwa_

_[Miwa] honestly, I’m happy to help_

He paused for a moment to contemplate what to say next, what was appropriate to pry into, if any other advice would even be needed at this point.

_[Miwa] oh, when you leave his house for the night get him on the front porch for some privacy and give him a kiss_

_[Miwa] that sounds romantic_

_[Miwa] I mean IF you leave his house_

_[Miwa] if not then good for you buddy_

He didn’t expect a reply to this, nor did he receive one.

That was fine, though. It was worth going to school the next day and seeing Kai smiling out the window instead of sulking, homework completed. It was worth Kai pushing Miwa out of the way by the face when Miwa asked if they made out. It was worth Kai asking if it was okay to detour to Miyaji Academy to pick Aichi up from school on their way to Card Capital. It was worth assuring Kai that he would go on ahead so Kai and Aichi could walk together (and, Miwa hoped, hold hands). 

Most of all, it was worth everything to see Aichi finally, finally relax in Kai’s presence, to see them leave together, and for Aichi to turn back to face Miwa on the way out and mouth the words _thank you._

It was worth everything to see the two of them happy, together, after all this time. 


End file.
